Molecular Computer DNA Computer

Molecular computers are computing systems that use the computational capabilities of molecules (mainly organic). Molecular computers use the idea of ​​the computational capabilities of the arrangement of atoms in space.

The molecular computer is usually understood as such systems that use individual molecules as elements of the computational path. In particular, a molecular computer can represent logical electrical circuits made up of individual molecules; transistors driven by a single molecule, etc.

Also, a molecular computer can be called a DNA computer, calculations in which correspond to different reactions between DNA fragments. They differ from classical computers in that chemical reactions occur immediately between a multitude of molecules independently of one another.

A DNA computer is a computing system that uses the computational capabilities of DNA molecules.

Story

In 1994, Leonard Adleman, a professor at the University of Southern California, demonstrated that using a tube with DNA, one can very effectively solve the classical combinatorial "traveling salesman problem" (the shortest route around the vertices of a graph). Classic computer architectures require a lot of computation with testing each option.

The DNA method allows you to immediately generate all possible solutions using known biochemical reactions. Then it is possible to quickly filter exactly the thread molecule in which the desired answer is encoded.

Problems with this:

1. Requires an extremely time-consuming series of reactions carried out under close observation.
2. There is a problem scaling problem.

Adleman's biocomputer was looking for an optimal bypass route for 7 vertices of the graph. But the more vertices of the graph, the more biocomputer DNA material is required.

It was calculated that when Adleman’s method was scaled to solve the bypass problem, not 7 points, but about 200, the mass of the amount of DNA needed to represent all possible solutions would exceed the mass of our planet.

In 2002, researchers from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, presented a programmable molecular computer consisting of enzymes and DNA molecules On April 28, 2004, Ehud Shapiro, Yaakov Benenson, Benjamin Gil, Uri Ben-Dor, and Rivka Hadar of the Weizmann Institute reported in the journal Nature about creating a DNA computer with a data input / output module . ^{[ source not specified 30 days ]}

In January 2013, researchers were able to record a few JPEG photos, a set of Shakespeare's sonnets, and an audio file in the DNA code.

In March 2013, the researchers created the Transcriptor (Biological Transistor)

Benenson-Shapiro final bioautomat

The Benenson-Shapiro Bioautomat is a multipurpose DNA computer technology developed by Israeli professor Ehud Shapiro (en: Ehud Shapiro) and Yaakov Benenson from the Weizmann Institute.

Its basis is the already known properties of biomolecules, such as DNA and enzymes. The functioning of a DNA computer is similar to the functioning of a theoretical device, known in mathematics as a "finite state machine" or a Turing machine.